Bringing capital back in: A case study of the South Korean automobile industrialization.

摘要

The emergence of the latecomers in the world automobile industry has posed a theoretical challenge to scholars of international political economy. Contending paradigms--the new international division of labor theory, the product life cycle theory, and the internationalization of capital theory--cannot successfully explain the variations within the latecomers. They, together, put too much emphasis on automobile TNCs as an independent variable. For them, auto TNCs seem to be a decisive factor in shaping the picture of the latecomers.;However, there are variations across not only the countries but also the companies within a specific country. The South Korean automobile industry manifests a peculiar outcome in the sense that there are two typical types of firms: Hyundai Motors Company where the role of auto TNCs is limited, as in Japan; and Daewoo Motors Company where the role of auto TNCs is profound, as in Latin American countries. Kia Motors Company stands in-between these two types.;Along the path to this peculiar outcome, the state made three attempts (in 1973, 1980, and the mid-1980s) to influence the development pattern of the South Korean automobile industry. Comparison of the three attempts shows that the notion of state-led industrialization, which theory has been widely applied in academic circles to South Korean capitalist development, is proven to be a myth when it comes to the South Korean automobile industrialization. Instead of the ever-powerful state which guided and directed industrial development, it was local capital that decided the development pattern and outcome. The success or failure of the government's policy rested on the willingness, preparedness, capacity, and strategy of local capital. Hence the title of this dissertation: "Bringing Capital Back In."